Filmi Geek

3 Deewarein (2003)

३ दीवारें

Dir. Naganesh Kukunoor

Maybe it's just the character that Naseeruddin Shah plays – the charming criminal with a penchant for poetry and philosophical ponderings – that gives 3 Deewarein the feel of Ishqiya if Isqhiya were not a comedy. It starts off as a sensitive story about the soft, chewy center of hardened criminals. Then, it takes a rather masala turn and becomes an entertaining sort of thriller.

3 Deewarein is composed of disparate elements that hang together as the movie takes you down the garden path. It focuses on three men, all convicted of murder, from different strata of life. The three men are interviewed by Chandrika (Juhi Chawla), a reporter making a documentary film about the experience of facing execution. Chandrika seems to approach these men with naïve sensitivity and a great deal of affection. Jaggu (Jackie Shroff) is wealthy, cosmopolitan, suave and poetic, but resigned to his capital sentence, and remorseful. He is accused of stabbing his knife upon suspicion she was having an affair. Nagya (Nagesh Kukunoor), a middle-class man, is presumed to have pushed his nagging wife off a curb and into oncoming traffic.  Nagya is slight and sullen, vehement in professing both his own innocence and his belief in the system; he is sure that when his case goes to trial, justice will out.

The third man, Ishaan (Naseeruddin Shah), is the most breezy and fatalistic of the three. Ishaan shot and killed a bank clerk during a robbery gone wrong. He doesn't acknowledge any remorse, perhaps doesn't even acknowledge any responsibility for the killing. He is, while affable, thoroughly detached. This utter absence of connection doesn't stop Chandrika from apparently falling for him, and she helps him plan and pull off an escape from the prison on the eve of his execution.

I say “apparently” because Chandrika is not what she seems; 3 Deewarein's most interesting aspect is the shifting layers of deception between Chandrika and the rest of the world, as she perpetrates the falsehood of the documentary project and tries to convince her friends - perhaps even herself, for a while - that her marriage is happy.  The movie's change of tone comes with the revelation of her true motivations, with respect to both the documentary and the marriage.  Even in the shift from arty psychological study to gritty thriller, though, 3 Deewarein retains a focus on performance. There is a limit to how consistent the characters can remain through such a transition. Chandrika's reaction to her husband's emotional abuse – a long-delayed reaction, a pressure-cooker release after what seems to be years of submissive toleration – is the first sign of what lies beneath the surface of this mild, seemingly unsophisticated woman. It is also a disproportionate reaction, hinting that Chandrika is not merely savvier than she seems, but possibly also unhinged.

That is a lot of range to demand out of an actor, and Juhi Chawla is up to the task, adding a touch of masala in the film's final third that contributes to the tonal transition. Though she comes right up to the ledge, Chawla never completely goes over the top, and this touch of restraint even when the script, and her character, come unglued is what makes the film hers; the mild, deferential version of Chandrika risks getting lost in the drama of the murderers' stories. The other actors are mostly understated and less rangy; Nagesh Kukunoor focuses his own character in the space of sullen defiance, and Jackie Shroff carries his remorse very effectively in his heavy body, in drooped shoulders and a faraway gaze. Only Naseeruddin Shah seems to have phoned it in, rendering the same charming rogue he has offered so frequently of late, in the Ishqiya films and Nagesh Kukunoor's Iqbal and even in 7 Khoon Maaf. That it isn't Shah's rangiest or most challenging performance, however, doesn't make it less entertaining to watch; the charm of that character works just as well on the audience as it does on those around him. And the film's climax shows that while that kind of charisma can help a man like Ishaan talk himself out of scrapes, it doesn't provide more than a superficial shield from the terrible consequences of his bad actions.

Astitva (2000)

अस्तित्व

Dir. Mahesh Manjrekar

I give Astitva full marks for trying.  It is courageous in its determination to say things about female desire that are rarely said, not just in the movies but in societal discourse at large.  It offers a woman, Aditi (Tabu), neglected by her husband for months on end while he travels abroad for business.  Lonely and hungry for contact, Aditi gives in to many months of pent-up desire and sleeps with her music teach Malhar Kamat (Mohnish Bahl).  Many years later, Aditi's husband Shree (Sachin Khedkar) discovers this secret that Aditi has kept, and that their son Aniket (Sunil Barve) is Malhar Kamat's, not his.  Shree is mortified - his pride assaulted, he perceives his manhood called into question - and he scorns Aditi and and their marriage.

In Astitva, Aditi is the aggrieved party, by far the more sympathetic character. Her tryst with Malhar Kamat is presented as an understandable response to deep neglect by a deeply self-absorbed man, a moment of weakness which she powerfully regrets, and for which she atones with decades of silent and absolute devotion to her family.  Astitva does not judge Aditi for having sexual needs or for giving into them.  To the contrary, the film's very point is that women, just like men, experience sexual desire, but unlike men, are expected to subjugate that desire to satisfying the needs of men, securing their egos, and keeping them happy at any cost.

The film unequivocally takes Aditi's side. It does so by making Shree a cartoonishly self-absorbed jerk.  You can almost imagine how his mother must have doted on him; this is a man who was raised to believe the universe begins and ends with his needs and desires and comfort.  There is no doubt that such men exist, but it is narratively lazy for Shree to be quite so repugnant.  Astitva also stacks the deck in its portrayal of society at large, which is represented here by an old friend of Shree's, Ravi (Ravindra Mankani) and his progressive divorcee wife Meghna (Smita Jaykar). These two are relentlessly critical of Shree and supportive of Aditi, which is nice, but doesn't seem especially realistic.  Wouldn't the society that creates men like Shree be likely to support the worldview it inculcates in him?  There could have been someone in the film to take that point of view. 

Still, in Astitva's strong moments, it goes places that movies rarely - if ever - dare to go.  Aditi's final speech ticks off a list of talking points that become increasingly bold and shocking.  She observes that women have desires, same as men.  Shree has affairs with women while he is on the road, but expects complete fidelity from her, alone at home for long stretches.  So, she asks him in nearly these words, what is she supposed to do when she gets horny?  This is already a remarkable acknowledgement of female sexual desire, on par with the Shabana Azmi's speech at the climax of Fire.  Aditi goes further, though.  She upbraids Shree for satisfying his own needs without restraint and even without consent. "You have raped me many times," she says.  The idea that sex within a marriage can be rape is not universally accepted (particularly in India) now, a decade and a half later.  It is a very bold position for a movie to take. 

It is also Astitva at its best.  It takes until these final few minutes for Tabu to wake up from a lifeless, morose performance and finaly bring some energy to the role.  It is good, an intense and quiet sort of energy, and it is worthy of Tabu, but it comes at the end of a dull, unsubtle, largely artless film.  Despite its courageous and important ideas, Astitva's execution is terribly flawed.  The movie beats you about the head with the cudgel of Shree's sexism and egotism.  In one scene, Shree belittles Aditi in front of Ravi and Meghna, insists no woman in his family will ever work, and opens and reads a certified letter delivered for Aditi.  In the next scene, Meghna, alone with Ravi, exclaims that Shree is "a male chauvinist pig!"  Thank you, scriptwriters - I could not have figured that out on my own without Meghna to make it explicit.  And who says "male chauvinist pig" anyhow? 

It is a mystery why so many movies about social issues - and especially feminist ones - suffer from such ham-fisted execution.  From Amu to Lajja, Bawandar to Water, and even, I admit, my cherished Fire, many message films have had righteous intent but been badly miscalibrated.  Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal were able to construct delicate narratives,  conveying their messages in films like Charulata and Ankur through stories, emotions, and symbolism.   Astitiva, though, is stiflingly literal, and suffers from an aggravating excess of exposition.  Aditi's relationship with Malhar Kamat is shown in flashback songs and images, but these are narrated by Aditi in voiceover.  Instead of interpreting a narrative of loneliness and desire, we learn from Aditi's say-so that she felt lonely and desirous. Similarly, we know of Shree's affairs only because his friend mentions them; this, too, could have been shown instead of narrated.  In place of engaging narrative and characters, in place of subtlety and theme, we get bare exposition and bombastic dialogue.

Nor is there much in the way of visual symbolism or artistry.  The film is staged like a play, and not a very well-wrought one.  One notable exception is a song in which Aditi rolls around in the grass looking very amorous indeed (need it be said that Tabu does this staggeringly well?), and eventually gazes lustily at a hunky Mohnish Bahl, twirling in a rain-soaked white kurta; here, for once, we are invited to share an experience with a character, and are shown rather than told what she feels.  Too, the scene is a clever visual turn, upending the customary male-gaze centered rain scene.  

 

Uff.

Otherwise, though, visual presentation simply seems unimportant to Manjrekar.  There is not even an attempt to age the characters, though the film's present and flashback time frames are separated by 25 years.  So 50-year old Aditi is indistinguishable from 25-year-old Aditi, except perhaps for the addition of spectacles.  While it's true that the aging of characters is rarely convincing, the absence of even a nod in its direction is distracting;  Tabu plays the mother of an actor five years her senior (Barve) without so much as a dusting of grey in her hair.

And so, while the message of Astitva is important, refreshing, and brave, it is somewhat lost in the earnest unsubtlety and failure of cinematic craft.  I want to love Astitva for even acknowledging that women experience lust, so rare is this basic statement of female humanity.  But instead of being a compelling and provocative film, Astitva is an over-eager after school special, a Very Special Episode, but just not a very artful piece of cinema.       

Pancham Unmixed (2008)

Dir. Brahmanand Singh

About ten years ago, before I ever watched a Hindi movie, I bought a CD called The Rough Guide to Bollywood - a brief compilation of hits spanning five decades.  I had been interested in pop music from all over the world for some time, and often turned to the Rough Guide series when I wanted to explore something new to me.  I had at that time only heard classical Indian music, and did not know what to expect from this CD.  I loaded the music onto my MP3 player and took off for work.  Then, I had a religious experience. 

The first song on the CD was R.D. Burman's legendary "Dum maaro dum."  By the time Asha Bhosle's first few notes danced into my ears, my entire musical universe was blown open.  I had never heard anything like this before, such a mind-blowing bend of Indian sounds with western.   The song is just two and a half minutes long, and in that brief time, I was hooked.  I listened to the tune over and over again before I even got to the rest of the compilation.

I do not have the vocabulary to put into words just what it was about "Dum maaro dum" that made an instant fan out of me.  Fortunately, in Brahmanand Singh's documentary Pancham Unmixed - Mujhe chalte jaana hai, you can hear from lots of folks who do.  In interviews with R.D. Burman's contemporaries, colleagues, and friends, the film paints a vivid picture of Burman's personality and process.   Even better than that, though, are the interviews with the new generation of music directors so profoundly influenced by Burman's innovations.  These are deliciously technical.  It is a treat to hear the likes of Shankar Ehsaan and Loy, Shantanu Moitra, and Ismail Darbar talk shop about what made Burman's music so different, unleashing their tabla bols and losing themselves in contemplation of Burman's rhythms and melodies.

The interviews with Burman's contemporaries are fascinating as well.  Musicians who worked with him, such as Bhupinder Singh, Louis Banks, Pyarelal Sharma, and of course Asha Bhosle, describe his composition process and give a fascinating view into his prolific and creative mind.  Kavita Krishnamurthy speaks reverently about his direction, the way he gently extracted exactly the performance he wanted from his singer.  Many more - Gulzar, Shammi Kapoor, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and others - weigh in to praise Burman's skill  as a composer and warmth as a friend.

Indeed, there is no shortage of effusive praise in this film, which is however somewhat light on biographical details and very light on criticism.  Pancham Unmixed tells a few stories from Burman's life, but the focus is always on his music.  Asha Bhosle describes meeting him for the first time when she was working with his father; he was then a skinny boy of fifteen eager to soak up every bit of music that he could.  But the film does not even mention their marriage, some twenty-five years later. 

Likewise for any less than reverent commentary on Burman's work.  R.D. Burman is, fairly or not, infamous for generous borrowing of melodies from foreign sources. Most of these uses are inarguably transformative, and many were done at the insistence of directors or producers, so to mention them is not an automatic indictment of Burman or his creativity.  Nevertheless, any overview of Burman's career should at least address them head-on.  Pancham Unmixed errs a little too far on the side of coyness, mentioning this aspect of Burman's fame but sweeping it under the rug with an embarrassed smile - Usha Uthup's embarrassed smile, to be exact, as she dismisses any question of originality with the tired old assertion that no music is ever truly original. 

Then again, Pancham Unmixed does not really make any pretense to objectivity - it is a paean, a eulogy, and a tribute, and as such, it need not dwell on anything other than praising and reverently memorializing the legend of its subject.  Viewed in that light, it is a terrific watch for anyone who appreciates classic Hindi cinema and its music.  And since the music of R.D. Burman was, for me, the overture to a great adventure with both, the affectionate memories of a score of Hindi cinema's greatest artists makes for a very enjoyable story indeed. 

Pancham Unmixed is available for rent or download from iTunes and a few other online services as well. 

Kannathil muthamittal (2002)

கன்னத்தில் முத்தமிட்டால்

Dir. Mani Ratnam

As highly regarded as Mani Ratnam is, I have often been told that his Tamil movies are better than his Hindi ones. I can believe it. I have been rather hard on those of his Hindi movies that I have seen. Perhaps because they are so often ravingly praised, I have unfair expectations. They have struck me as uneven in tone, unsure what kind of movies they wanted to be, what message they wanted to send.

Kannathil muthamittal ("a peck on the cheek"), in contrast, is nearly flawless. It is a simple story, simply told, unburdened by melodramatic embellishments or unrealistic characters. These clean lines, these relatable characterizations, allow the movie to explore some large, dense themes without tying itself in intractable knots. Dil se obscures its examination of terrorism with Shah Rukh Khan's hammy and under-motivated stalker romance. Yuva is severely compromised by its absurd superman character who takes bullets and falls off bridges without ever wavering in courage or commitment. But Kannathil muthamittal ranges from an adopted child's search for her identity to the vicious horrors of Sri Lanka's internecine conflicts without ever losing its emotional mooring.

Shyam Benegal's movies often probe big, society-shaking themes and events through close studies of the experiences of a small number of people. One does not always need an expansive cast and an epic storyline to examine rangy ideas. Mani Ratnam succeeds with Kannathil muthamittal because it, too, focuses a tight lens on a small family. Thiruchelvan (Madhavan) and Indira (Simran) adopt a baby girl born in a Tamil Nadu refugee camp to M.D. Shyama (Nandita Das), who has fled the fighting in Sri Lanka between Tamil Tiger fighters and the Sri Lankan army.  On her ninth birthday, the girl, Amudha (P.S. Keerthana) learns of her adoptive origins, and demands to meet her mother.  Her parents, burdened by guilt and concern for their headstrong little girl, take her to Sri Lanka in search of Shyama.

It is arguably foolish of this family to walk straight into a war zone as they do, all for the demands of an imperious child. The film seems not to judge them for this bad decision, however.  We see Indira's anguish at Amudha's suffering, her guilt at perpetrating the implied deception of adoption, and her helplessness in the face of Amudha's drive; the little girl runs away from home twice, set on finding her own way to Sri Lanka, so it is hard to blame her parents for taking her there.  And the family seems genuinely unprepared for what they find there, as if the remoteness of the conflict from their comfortable air-conditioned Madras home left them with little awareness of it, no framework in which to form expectations.  They are naive in their bold forays, even while accompanied by a local guide (Prakash Raj).  They find themselves buffeted in the confusion of a flood of refugees, shelled by army artillery even as they flee their village.  They find themselves rubbing elbows with suicide bombers, and caught in the crossfire of rifle and grenade battles.  They even find themselves in the jungle, surrounded by suspicious fighters who point guns to their heads and demand they prove their loyalties.  In the Sri Lanka the family visits, violence is a way of life.

It is perhaps the film's main message that being aware of this conflict, telling its stories, is of crucial importance to the individual lives that are rent by it.  Thiruchelvan is himself a storyteller, a writer; if he had not been hearing and telling the stories of refugees in the camp where Shyama gave birth, he and Indira and Amudha would never have come together to form a family.  And so Kannathil muthamittal tells their story, Amudha's and Shyama's and Thiruchelvan's and Indira's.  It tells those stories, not with a sweeping focus that outlines the grand history of Tamil/Sinhalese conflicts, but with an intimate focus on a child's perspective.  In a child's eye, the violence is not only senseless, but irrelevant.  All that matters is the connections of love, the connections that bind families together. 

Much of Kannathil muthamittal's expression of the love in Amudha's family is told impressionistically during the movie's gorgeous A.R. Rahman songs.  In these stunning picturizations, Amudha dances and cuddles and plays with each of her parents (Indira in the title song, and Thiruchelvan in "Nenjil Jil Jil") across diverse, colorful dreamscapes like those of the songs of Dil se.  These picturizations are paintings in motion, visual poetry singing the family's love.   Another song, "Vidai Kodu," presents the harsh, dirty anguish of a vast train of refugees against the stark beauty of thunderclouds and wilderness.  Red clay soil and the army-green of tank convoys splash the backdrop of this canvas on which the brightly-colored clothes of the refugees are anything but cheerful.

This thematic juxtaposition between the vastness of the civil war and the depth of the family's love is what makes Kannathil muthamittal its own effective and moving story.  It is how the movie can say so much, without trying to do too much. Mani Ratnam's Bombay takes a similar approach, and is equally effective.  It is not for nothing that these are by far the two best I've seen of his movies.  It may also be not for nothing that they are both written and shot in Tamil.

Gaja Gamini (2000)

गज गामिनी

Dir. M.F. Hussain

Gaja Gamini, M.F. Husain's first excursion into filmmaking, is absurd in almost every aspect, and not in the cool intellectual sense.  It is just ridiculous.  It's a series of laughably poor attempts at profundity, which are often embarrassing to watch.  It is safe to say that were it not for the reverence attached to Husain himself, the project would never have attracted either financial backing or the high-profile stars who dupe innocents like me into enduring it.   It is, as a Twitter acquaintance so concisely summarized it, senseless.

Gaja Gamini is widely described as Husain's tribute to his "muse," Madhuri Dixit.  If this description gives you pause - as it does me - it's with good reason.  Gaja Gamini is every bit as objectifying and regressive as it sounds when it comes to paying tribute to a woman, or to women, or to Women.  It is brimming over with revoltingly pompous references to the Ageless Mystery That Is Woman and Woman's Mystical Power and other such claptrap that one associates with the sort of self-congratulatory man who says things like "I'm not a misogynist; I love women." 

The titular Gaja Gamini (Madhuri Dixit), is a mysterious, flitting creature whom all men are in thrall of though none fully glimpses.  She incarnates through several ages as a series of women, most of whom have this in common:  Each waits alone on her conceptual pedestal for an arrant man to come to her and be inspired by her beauty to create their own masterworks.  One incarnation, Shakuntala, is the muse of the epic poet Kalidas (Mohan Agashe, a co-producer of the film credited here as Dr Mohan Agashe as if his academic credentials bolster the thin tissue of Husain's wanky fantasy).  Shakuntala's decidedly unworthy mate is a doltish, Jodhpur-wearing, banduk-toting rajkumar.   In another incarnation, Gaja Gamini is Mona Lisa, who is, of course, the inspiration of Leonardo Da Vinci, embodied here by Naseeruddin Shah - you read that right - in a stupid costume coughing up even stupider lines while waving his compensatory paintbrush in the air. 

What?

The supposedly modern incarnation of Gaja Gamini, Monica (note the western name), enjoys a light romantic dance with Shah Rukh Khan before the important manly work of covering a war (he is a photojournalist) wrenches him from her arms, leaving her teary and anxious.  This is M.F. Husain's great vision of the timeless power of woman - the endless ability to sit around on our asses crying while our men  create art, science, culture, and shape the world.

In some kind of token nod to feminist themes, one incarnation of Gaja Gamini, Sangeeta, inspires a group of village women including Shabana Azmi, Farida Jalal, and  Shilpa Shirodkar, to take up their lanterns and march against - well, against what it is not clear, but their march is stern and angry and they wield their lanterns fiercely.  But even this powerful Sangeeta is debilitated; she is sometimes blind, sometimes mute, and each of the other women transforms into her, ensuring that none of them is whole either.  And even Sangeeta waits for the rescuing hand of her ageless lover Jayant.  Feh.

Why, Shabana ji?

There is plenty more; the vapidity of Husain's vision is nearly boundless, and Gaja Gamini indulges it to the fullest in over two hours of excruciatingly scripted, stiffly acted nonsense. You might think that a movie conceived and executed by an artist of Husain's stature would at least have visual appeal, but not so Gaja Gamini.  The sets are, I suppose, meant to be theatrical, minimalist, and evocative, but for the most part they come across as amateurish and low budget.  The film's early sequences take place on an abstracted, primary yellow Banaras ghat that looks more like the hastily hammered and painted set of a high school play than that of a high-concept art film.   The Monica and Shah Rukh sequence occurs on a set bisected by a large brick wall (one side represents the past and tradition, the other the present and modernity, get it?) - and when Shah Rukh Khan's choregraphy requires him to lean against it, it shudders and sways, belying the papier-mâché beneath its brick facade.  Only the blue-and-white Dal Mandi set on which the women's march occurs is anything close to evocative.  One just expects more from such a revered visual artist as Husain.

I have been to Banaras, and you, sir, are no Banaras.

Prancing about on these poor, pliant theatrical sets, the array of actors comport themselves woodenly and self-consciously; the experienced stars gracing this cast are as forced and ridiculous as Husain's unknowns.  There is nothing wrong with highly stylized direction when the style serves a purpose, but here it only lends pomposity, a sense that someone (well, Husain) believes these characters have such profound philosophical insights to deliver that they must speak them in the patronizing tones of a small child's religious teacher.  It compounds embarrassment upon painful embarrassment, in an utter disaster of a movie that is more pointless than profound.

Ooga booga!

If Gaja Gamini has a redeeming feature, it is Madhuri herself.  How many movies can one say this of?  If there is any actor who can make the unwatchable bearable for a moment with a dazzling smile or a crisply executed mudra, it is Madhuri Dixit.  Thankfully, here she is as radiant as ever.  M.F. Husain's tribute to her may be objectifying bakhwas with a camera that dwells embarrassingly languidly on the exaggerated sway of Gaja Gamini's ass, but you can't say Madhuri is not a worthy choice of muse.  She is at her best, of course, in the movie's songs, which are by far its highlights.  Bhupen Hazarika's music is quite lovely throughout, and the songs are smartly (if weirdly) choreographed. Indeed, I had seen two of the songs years ago, "Meri payal bole" and "Do sadiyan ke sangam," and rather wish I had left it at that.